Category Archives: Architecture

David Fisher is the leading proponent of dynamic architecture and the inventor of the shape-changing dynamic skyscraper. The shape-changing feature is a clear differentiator between the dynamic skyscraper and earlier symmetrical rotating high-rise buildings like Suite Vollard, which was the first rotating high-rise building. This unique residential building opened in 2001 in Brazil.

Source: costruzionipallotta.it

GE.DI Group

The GE.DI Group is an Italian construction firm that has become a leading proponent of new construction systems, including David Fisher’s dynamic architecture.

“GE.DI. Group (GEstione DInamica stand for Dynamic Management) in 2008, decided to embark on a new era of architecture: the Dynamic Architecture, a project of the architect David Fisher for rotating towers, continually evolving: dynamic, ecological, made with industrial systems.”

“The revolution of Fisher put an end to the era of the static and immutable architecture and it inaugurates a new one, at the sign of the dynamism and the lifestyle. These buildings will become the symbol of a new philosophy that will change the image of our cities and the concept of living.”

1. Building exterior shape changes continuously: Each floor can rotate slowly thru 360 degrees independently of the other floors, with control over speed and direction of rotation. Coordination of the rotating floors to produce the artistic building shapes shown above may not be implemented in some applications. Nonetheless, the building’s exterior shape now has a fourth dimension: Time. The artistic possibilities of the dynamic skyscraper are shown (in time lapse) in the following 2011 video.

2. Prefabricated construction, except for the reinforced concrete core: After the reinforced concrete core has been completed and building services have been installed inside the core, factory manufactured prefabricated units will be transported to the construction site completely finished and will be hung from the central core. Connecting each rotating floor to electrical and water services in the stationary core will be an interesting engineering challenge. The extensive use of prefabricated construction (about 85% of total construction) greatly reduces site labor requirements, construction environmental impacts, and overall construction time. Read more on plans for prefabrication at the following link:

3. Generates its own electric power: Horizontal wind turbine generators installed in the approximately two-foot gap between the rotating floors will be the building’s primary source of power. Roof-mounted solar panels on each floor also will be employed. Surplus power will be delivered to the grid, delivering enough power to supply about five similarly sized buildings in the vicinity. Read more on the energy generating and energy saving features of the dynamic skyscraper at the following link:

In a 14 February 2017 article entitled, “Dubai Will Have the World’s First Rotating Skyscraper by 2020,” Madison Margolin reported on the prospects for an 80-story mixed-use (office, hotel, residential) rotating skyscraper in Dubai. You can read the complete article on the Motherboard website at the following link:

Each floor of the 420 meter (1,378 ft.) Da Vinci Tower will consist of 40 factory-built modules hung from the load-bearing 22-meter (72.2 ft.) diameter reinforced concrete core. Each module will be cantilevered up to 15 meters (49.2 ft.) from the core.

Cantilevered rotating floors. Source: costruzionipallotta.it

The lower retail / office floors of the Da Vinci Tower will not rotate. The upper hotel and residential floors will rotate and each will require about 4 kW of power to rotate. Each residential floor can be configured into several individual apartments or a single “villa.” You’ll find a concept for a “luxury penthouse villa” at the following link:

With the decline of military aircraft production after World War II (WWII), the U.S. aircraft industry sought other opportunities for employing their aluminum, steel and plastics fabrication experience in the post-war economy. In the 2 September 1946 issue of Aviation News magazine, there was an article entitled “Aircraft Industry Will Make Aluminum Houses for Veterans,” that reported the following:

“Two and a half dozen aircraft manufacturers are expected soon to participate in the government’s prefabricated housing program.”

“Aircraft companies will concentrate on FHA approved designs in aluminum and its combination with plywood and insulation, while other companies will build prefabs in steel and other materials. Designs will be furnished to the manufacturers.”

“Nearly all war-surplus aluminum sheet has been used up for roofing and siding in urgent building projects; practically none remains for the prefab program. Civilian Production Administration has received from FHA specification for aluminum sheet and other materials to be manufactured. ….Most aluminum sheet for prefabs will be 12 to 20 gauge – .019 – .051 inch.”

Under the government program, the prefab home manufacturers were protected financially with FHA guarantees to cover 90% of costs, including a promise by Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to purchase any homes not sold. In addition, these manufacturers were to be given preferred access to surplus wartime factories that could be converted for mass-production of homes.

The business case for the post-war aluminum and steel pre-fabricated homes was that they could be sold profitably at a price that was substantially less than conventional wood-constructed homes.

Not surprisingly, building contractors were against this program to mass-produce pre-fabricated homes in factories. Moreover, local building codes and zoning ordnances were not necessarily compatible with the planned large scale deployment of mass-produced, prefabricated homes.

Now consider the most common housing problem of today, which seems to me to be a shortage of available low-cost housing. In recent years, this has sparked the “tiny home movement,” which is a social and architectural movement promoting living simply in small homes. Seventy years after the end of WW II, it may be time to reconsider the use of mass-produced, prefabricated aluminum and steel homes to address the current shortage of low-cost housing.

Let’s take a look at several of these efficient, and sometimes stylish post-war prefabricated homes:

In 1927, R. Buckminster Fuller developed plans for the Dymaxion (acronym for “dynamic, maximum, tension”) house, which was intended to be a mass-produced metal house of novel circular design.

Early interest in applying aircraft aluminum manufacturing techniques to post WWII housing construction was expressed by Beech Aircraft Corp. In 1944, Beech established a joint project with Dymaxion Dwelling Machines, Inc. (later renamed Fuller Houses, Inc.) to manufacture a prototype, updated Dymaxion house in Wichita, Kansas. The strong aluminum riveted structure and skin was built from WWII surplus material, with the aluminum-domed roof hung from a stainless steel strut; providing 1,017 ft2 of floor space. The aluminum, stainless steel and plastic house weighted about 8,000 pounds and was designed to withstand severe weather, including tornados.

“Beech Aircraft Corp. expected to build 200 of these houses a day soon after the start of 1947, according to Herman Wolf, president of Fuller Homes, Inc., which will market the dwelling designed by R. Buckminster Fuller……..The houses will be subcontracted to construction firms which will combine aircraft technology and auto mass production methods. Wolf and Fuller see the new dwellings, which will sell for $6,500 erected, as the answer to the veterans housing problem. City building codes are the big imponderable in forecasting the success of this dwelling.”

Only two Dymaxion houses were built. One is now in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

The California aircraft manufacturer Consolidated Vultee (later Convair) considered mass-producing a pre-fabricated homes for the post-WWII housing market. Collaboration with industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss and architect Edward Larrabee in 1947 led to the design of a small two-bedroom home. With kitchen appliances, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, and heating, the house was expected to sell for $7,000 – $8,000, including the cost of the lot.

The Fleet House in the factory. Source: www.thefleethouse.comThe Fleet House exterior view. Source: www.thefleethouse.com

Only two prototypes were manufactured in 1947.

An article by Jeffrey Head entitled “Snatched from Oblivion,” on the Metropolis website reported:

“Comprising 28 parts, the two-bedroom, one-bath structure appears larger than its 810 square feet because 75 percent of the exterior walls are windows. The remaining interior, roof, and garage walls are constructed of “lumicomb,” a lightweight material made of a cardboard-like honeycomb core bonded between sheets of high-strength aluminum, used at the time for airplane bulkheads. The lumicomb adds to the open feeling of the house by requiring less floor space than traditional wall and roof construction.”

“Because the resulting design was so unorthodox, Reginald Fleet, president of Southern California Homes Incorporated, opted for a novel way of marketing it. Fleet resided in the prototype with his wife and daughter, leaving it open for prospective buyers to see what life was like in a modern prefabricated home.”

“New owner Sergio Santino was about to close escrow and planned to raze the house until the South Pasadena Cultural Heritage Commission informed him of its significance.”

“Historically known as the “Consolidated Vultee House”, and commonly referred to as “the Fleet House”, today it may be the only structure still remaining that was designed, built and pre-assembled entirely in an aircraft factory.”

“The Fleet House is featured in Taschen’s PREFAB HOUSES 2010. It is referenced in numerous publications documenting the history of pre-fab housing and has been photographed by noted post WWII architectural photographer Julius Shulman.”

The Fleet House today. Source: www.thefleethouse.com

Lustron Corporation offered low-maintenance steel homes

The Lustron Corporation, formed in 1947 by Carl Strandlund, received financing from RFC to mass-produce steel pre-fabricated houses in a former Curtiss-Wright aircraft factory in Columbus, OH.

Original plans were to manufacture more than 10,000 homes per year. Actual production was much less, with a total of 2,498 Lustron homes manufactured between 1948 and 1950. House prices were in the $8,500 – $9,500 range, increasing to an average of about $10,500 by the end of 1949. This was approaching the price of a comparable, conventional, wood-constructed house.

The Lustron Corporation declared bankruptcy in 1950. The business failed because of several factors, including production delays, poor distribution strategy, and escalating prices that reduced the price advantage of a pre-fabricated house.

About 2,000 Lustron homes still exist today. You can read more on Lustron houses at the following link:

During WWII, Lincoln Industries developed processes for making structural material at low cost for radar housings. This process led to the design of 4’ x 8’ structural panels for buildings that were manufactured using the following process:

“Lincoln plastic panels are made by alternating sheets of heavy paper, cloth, or glass cloth with glue strips. When the desired thickness is obtained, the sheets are expanded on an automatic machine to form a honeycomb pattern. This honeycomb core is thoroughly impregnated with high-strength phenolic resin and then bonded between facing sheets of aluminum alloy, and the entire panel sealed with a vapor barrier.”

This material provides both great strength and high insulating properties. The bearing capacity of a two-inch thick wall panel compared favorably with the load carrying capacity of a brick wall one foot thick. The three-inch thick roof panels were designed to withstand an eight-foot snow load.

The basic house contained two bedrooms, a bath, living room, kitchen, dining room and general utility room. Under the Veteran’s Emergency Housing Program, the Lincoln pilot plant in Marion, Virginia manufactured and sold 2-bedroom homes for about $3,500 – $4,000 and a 3-bedroom home for about $4,500, including, “wiring, water piping and heating,” constructed on a concrete or similar slab. These prices did not include the price of the land or the price of kitchen appliances and a hot water heater. Construction took about two days.

Source: Aviation News magazine

The house was designed for severe weather and the materials of construction provided protection against dry rot, internal condensation and termites.

By 1946, numerous Lincoln aluminum homes had been built and were in use. However, it appears that Lincoln never made the transition to large scale production in former airplane factories.

After WWII, aluminum manufacturers were faced with large stocks of aluminum ore and decreasing orders. Like the aircraft manufacturers, Alcoa sough alternate markets for their finished aluminum products.

A decade after the end of WWII, Alcoa offered the Care-Free Home, which was a mid-century modern aluminum ranch house designed by Charles M. Goodman. Originally, Alcoa planned to build one Care-Free home in each of the 48 states to showcase the versatility of aluminum in home construction. A total of 24 Care-Free homes were built. The house has a 1,900 ft2 living area, a full basement, and a 2-car carport.

The framing is aluminum and wooden columns are clad in aluminum. The exterior is aluminum siding with big, aluminum-framed windows and sliding doors, and an aluminum front door. The roof and fascia strip also are aluminum. The originally expected price was about $25,000, but actual cost was almost double. In the mid-1950s, the Care-Free house couldn’t compete with the lower cost of conventional wood construction.

Source: Alcoa 1957 brochure

Source: Alcoa 1957 brochure

You can download a 1957 Alcoa sales brochure on the aluminum Care-Free Home at the following link:

In 1944, the UK Ministry of Works held a public display at the Tate Gallery in London of five types of prefabricated homes.

One aluminum prefab, made from surplus aircraft materials, the AIROH (Aircraft Industries Research Organization on Housing)

One steel-framed prefab with asbestos panels, the Arcon, which was adapted from the all-steel Portal prototype

Two timber-framed prefab designs, the Tarran and the Uni-Seco

This popular display was held again in 1945.

In comparison to the very small number of post-war aluminum and steel prefabricated homes built in the U.S., the production in the UK was very successful.

The AIROH aluminum house

An pre-fab package for an AIROH house consisted of 2,000 components that were assembled in four sections and delivered to the intended site by truck. The fully equipped bungalow weighed about 10 tons and provided 675 ft2 of living space, including a fully equipped kitchen and bath. In 1947 an AIROH home cost £1,610 ($6,488 @ $4.03 USD/£ in 1947) each to produce, plus cost of the land and installation. A total of 54,500 AIROH homes were constructed.

Source: Architects’ Journal, vol. 101, 1945 Apr. 19, p. 452

Source: https://peterdewrance.files.wordpress.com

Source: https://peterdewrance.files.wordpress.com

More information on the AIROH aluminum prefabricated house can be found at the following link:

The steel-framed Arcon prefabricated home had two bedrooms, fully equipped kitchen and bath and included steel built-in cabinets in the kitchen, bath and bedrooms. Exterior walls and roofing were made of corrugated asbestos panels. The house was manufactured in four 7ft-6in wide sections to enable road transportation to a pre-prepared site where the house was assembled. An Arcon house cost £1,209 ($4,872 U.S. @ $4.03 USD/£ in 1947) each to produce, plus cost of the land and installation. A total of 38,859 Arcon homes were constructed.

A notable French design was Jean Prouvé’s “Demountable House,” which was developed in 1946 under a commission from the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning for use as temporary bungalows for post-war housing for Lorraine, France. The metal frame load-bearing structure of the Demountable House is shown in the first photo below. Panels of various types are then attached to the frame to complete the exterior of the house and any internal room partitions.

In the U.S., the post-war mass production of prefabricated aluminum and steel houses never materialized. Lustron was the largest manufacturer with 2,498 houses. In the UK, over 93,000 prefabricated aluminum and steel houses were built as part of the post-war building boom that delivered a total of 156,623 prefabricated houses of all types between 1945 and 1951, when the program ended.

The lack of success in the U.S. arose from several factors, including:

High up-front cost to establish a mass-production line for prefabricated housing, even in a big, surplus wartime factory that was available to the manufacturer on good financial terms.

Immature supply chain to support factory operations.

Ineffective distribution and delivery infrastructure.

Unprepared local building codes and zoning ordnances.

Opposition from construction workers and unions that did not want to lose work to factory-produced homes.

Manufacturing cost increases, which reduced or eliminated the price advantage of the prefabricated homes.

From these post-war lessons learned, and with the renewed interest in “tiny homes”, it seems that there should be a business case for a modern, scalable, smart factory for the low-cost mass-production of durable prefabricated houses manufactured from aluminum, steel, and/or other materials. These prefabricated houses should be modestly-sized, modern, attractive, and customizable to a degree while respecting a basic standard design. These houses should be designed for siting on small lots in urban or suburban areas and for rapid construction.

The UK post-WWII prefab housing boom lasted seven years and delivered low-cost housing for about a half million people. I believe that there is a large market in the U.S. for this type of low-price housing, but great obstacles must be overcome, especially in California, where nobody will want a modest prefabricated home sited next to their McMansion.

An architectural trend in New York City (NYC) is the construction of very tall, very slender residential / multi-use towers on small building sites in the heart of the city. This trend is driven by the very high cost and limited availability of large building sites. This trend is enabled by zoning laws and the following technical factors:

Advanced design analysis and simulation: Advances in structural modeling, computing power, and simulation permit a more detailed engineering analysis of the building’s response to static and dynamic loads and optimization of the design for the specified conditions.

Aerodynamic shaping: Incorporation of shapes and design details that break up the wind flow around a building help reduce wind loads that can cause swaying and vortex shedding that can shake / vibrate a building.

Damping devices: Devices such as mass dampers (moving weights) and slosh dampers (large tanks of water) are employed to counteract the building’s natural response to external forces. For example, mass dampers installed on an upper floor can be tuned to move out of phase with wind-induced forces and thereby reduce sway. Slosh dampers can help absorb vibrations. Both can help make the building more comfortable for its occupants, particularly on the upper floors.

New York City’s Skyscraper Museum defines “slenderness” as the ratio of the width of a building’s base to its height.

The 1,250 ft. (381 meters) tall Empire State Building (not including antenna) occupies a full city block site measuring 424 x 187 ft. (129.2 x 57 meters), for a slenderness ratio of 1:2.95.

The original World Trade Center (WTC) north tower (not including antenna) was 1,368 ft. (417 meters) tall and measured 209 ft. (63.7 meters) on a side, yielding a slenderness ratio of 1:6.5.

New “super-slender” towers in NYC have slenderness ratios up to 1:23. At this slenderness ratio, a 12-inch ruler standing on end would be slightly more than 1/2 inch wide.

Visit the Skyscraper Museum’s website at the following link for look at the top 18 “super-slenders” in NYC and a description of the local zoning laws that allow their development.

This 96-floor residential tower in mid-town Manhattan was built between 2012 and 2015, and, at a height of 1,396 ft. (426 meters), is one of the tallest buildings in New York City and currently is the tallest residential tower in the Western hemisphere. The highest occupied floor is almost a quarter mile up, at 1,287 ft. (392 meters).

Image source: StreetEasy.com

This square building measures 93 ft. (28 meters) on a side (one foot less than the length of a basketball court), giving it a slenderness ratio of 1:15.

This site includes the following diagram, which compares (L to R) the new One WTC, the 432 Park Ave tower, one of the original WTC towers, and the Empire State Building. Note how slender the 432 Park Ave tower is relative to the conventional skyscrapers.

In case you’re interested, you can find apartment listings for sale or rent at the following website:

On the date I wrote this article, the least expensive apartment (6 rooms, 3 bedrooms, 4-1/2 baths) was selling for $17.5M on the lowly 36th floor. A penthouse on the 88th floor was under contract for $76.5M.

SHoP Architects: Residential tower, 111 West 57th Street, New York City

This building is under construction and will be an 80-floor, 1,438 ft. (438 meter) tall, residential tower when it is completed in 2018. With a slenderness ratio of 1:23, this will be the most slender skyscraper in the world. The square cross-section of the building steps back at about 2/3 height to give the top of the building a chisel-like profile.

SHoP Architects describes this project as:

“The design aims to bring back the quality, materiality and proportions of historic NYC towers, while taking advantage of the latest technology to push the limits of engineering and fabrication.”

To improve stability in high winds and seismic events, the building includes an 800-ton tuned mass damper.

This is a mixed-use, irregularly shaped 99-floor skyscraper that will be 1,550 ft. (472 m) tall when it is completed in 2019. The highest occupied floor will be more than a quarter mile high, at 1,450 ft. (442 meters).

The developers purchased “air rights” from a neighboring property owner to permit part of the Central Park Tower to be cantilevered over the neighboring property, as shown in the following figures.

Image source: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

The deck at the top of the building will be 182 ft. (55.5 meters) taller than the new One World Trade Center, which is still considered to be taller because of its antenna structure on the roof. This height comparison can be seen in the following diagram, which also highlights how slender the Central Park Tower is in comparison to One WTC.

Image source: adapted from New York YIMBY

SHoP Architects: Miami Innovation Tower, 1031 NW First Ave, Miami

The trend toward tall, slender towers is not limited to NYC. Another stunning tall, slender mixed-use skyscraper is SHoP’s twisting 633 ft. (193 meters) Miami Innovation Tower planned for Miami’s Park West neighborhood. This skyscraper will be built as part of a four block “Miami Innovation District,” which is intended to attract high-tech businesses to the mixed-use neighborhood.

Image source: SHoP Architects

The tower incorporates a fully integrated “active skin” that provides lighting and a messaging capability on the surface of the building. The Miami Herald reported:

“Unlike traditional billboard signage, the mesh-like messaging technologies are in fact integrated completely into the complex, pleated form of the tower’s exterior. The result is an ethereal, highly-transparent surface, open to the slender concrete tower core and views of the city and the sky beyond.”

You will find more information on the Miami Innovation Tower, and its integration in the Innovation District at the following link:

From here, you can navigate to their Tall Buildings Information & Resources, including The Skyscraper Center, which contains the Global Tall Building Database. The direct link to the Skyscraper Center is:

The tower is one of mankind’s oldest architectural accomplishments. The World Federation of Great Towers is an international association with 48 members in over 20 countries that exists to showcase the world’s great modern towers and celebrate the feats of architecture and engineering that led to their creation. You can examine many of the tallest buildings in the world at the following link:

The World Federation of Great Towers membership does not include all of the very tall buildings in the world, such as the new One World Trade Center in New York City. You can find a listing of all of the world’s buildings that have a height exceeding 300 meters (984 feet) at the following link:

From here, you can navigate to their Tall Buildings Information & Resources, including The Skyscraper Center, which contains the Global Tall Building Database. The direct link to the Skyscraper Center is: